Ombra mai fu
by tetleybag
Summary: ... Being the Beginning of the Very True Story of Minerva McGonagall and Elphinstone Urquart. - - There is more to Minerva's backstory than Pottermore leads us to believe. There is also more to Elphinstone Urquart than meets the eye. Queer-themed friendship and romance.
1. Chapter 1: Highgate

**A/N: **This was my entry for the 2011/12 edition of HoggyWartyXmas at Livejournal. Kelly Chambliss wanted a subversion of Minerva's Pottermore backstory, but I decided to give her the full truth instead. My deep thanks go to Kelly for giving me the opportunity to write this, to The Real Snape for assigning the prompt to me and for hosting this wonderful fest, and to Pale Moonlite and Featherxquill for their fantastic beta work.

Today you'll get the first two chapters, and then it'll be a chapter a week until the full beginning of the story is told.

**~ / ~**

**Ombra mai fu**

**Being the Beginning of the Very True Story of Minerva McGonagall and Elphinstone Urquart**

**~ / ~**

**~ by Tetley ~**

**~ / ~**

**Highgate, London, October 1944**

At the age of nineteen, Minerva McGonagall was sure that she was not made for this thing they called love.

And it was fine with her, really, she thought as she put the kettle on and made herself a cheddar sandwich. Dinner was a frugal affair that evening, thanks to an earlier overindulgence at Flourish & Blott's that had overstretched her budget. But it had been worth it.

All of it was.

Minerva dropped two teabags into the mug and sat down by the window of her bedsit. She'd called it her own for some two months now, and she was proud of it. Tiny it might be, and sharing a bathroom and kitchen with three other fellow single women, all Muggles, might not be what she had dreamt of. But it was hers. Her bedsit, paid for by her own money, with her own, oaken secretary desk. The latter had been Aunt Pat's gift on what she'd jokingly called M-Day - the day Minerva McGonagall had turned her back on the prospect of being a farmer's wife and accepted the position of secretary-in-training to the new Deputy Head of the Wizengamot Administration Service.

It wasn't a bad job. Granted, she had secretly hoped that her father might agree to pay her keep for another four years of study at the Institute for Advanced Transfiguration in Salem. The scholarship they had offered her would only have covered the tuition. But four more years of rent and board, to study _Transfiguration_of all things - well, that had been asking too much of the Reverend Robert McGonagall. Especially with two younger sons still at Hogwarts.

Naturally, Minerva hadn't complained. Money wasn't in abundance at the McGonagall's, and it _was_true that Malcolm and Robert Junior would - hopefully - have to support families eventually and needed the education more. Plus, truth be told, Minerva had found that she didn't really mind standing on her own feet, even if it meant clerical drudgery instead of academic laurels. It felt good to be one's own woman, to have to rely on nobody, and even to be able to save a few Galleons each month. Who knew, one day her vault at Gringott's might even be full enough to allow, if not for a full course at Salem, perhaps for a year or two in Cracow or Nantes.

Mug in hand, Minerva went to the bookshelf to select the evening's reading. The shelf had been a gift from her aunt's elderly friend, and it had come with two boxes full of books from the old lady's own supply - mostly scholarly works, Arithmancy having being Miss Roberts's field in her active days, and a few well-thumbed Muggle novels in inexpensive editions. "Keep your brain well-oiled over all that work," she had admonished Minerva in her stern schoolmarm tone when she'd come to deliver the goods, and Minerva had promised.

It was a promise more than easy to keep. Not just because Minerva had little else to do - although there _was_that, given that most her friends were engaged by now. But most of all, it was the sense of freedom that her books gave her. It had always been this way: when Minerva had her nose in her books, it was as if the walls around her expanded, and the whole world suddenly seemed to fit into her room. Quick-witted heroines in buns and high collars, orphan boys, Celtic witches, and Vijay Kumar with his Principles of the Numerical Determination of Transfiguration Intensity - they were all regular guests in Minerva McGonagall's fourth-floor bedsit in Northern London.

It was curious, the feeling. She'd been afraid that the smallness of the flat and the stifling summer heat under the roof would make her regret that she'd turned down a man who clearly loved her, and instead chosen the lonely and frugal life of a woman about to turn spinster well before her time. But Minerva found that she hadn't felt so light around the chest and so tall in her shoes since her first Transfiguration lesson, seven and three quarter years ago.

It was a matter of walking down her own path, she supposed.

Work at the Ministry was better than expected, too. Certainly, the downside was that it meant no more late-night reading sessions, for Elphinstone Urquart was an early riser and liked his assistant at her place by seven in the morning. But as far as bosses went, Minerva found that she had been lucky. Mr Urquart wasn't irritable like Mafalda's boss, or unforgivinging like that perfectionist, ambitious, oh-so-polyglot, Moustache-in-Chief of the Hit Wizard Squad. In fact, Elphinstone Urquart was a perfect delight to work for, if one disregarded the hours he kept. He could make his own tea, and when he did, never forgot Minerva (nor her preferred number of teabags per mug). He expected her to develop a good understanding of Wizarding Common Law and the Statutes of the Wizengamot, and he gave her the time to study them. And, last but not least for someone with a circulation like hers, he provided the workplace with the least danger of cold feet in the entire Ministry - thanks to Orfeo, the black Labrador, who had judged the rug under Minerva's desk a most adequate place for an office dog to spend his working hours when his master was out on court duty.

Moreover, Minerva's boss had quite an interesting past. She'd discovered it bit by bit over tea and ginger newts, on the many breaks they took to fortify themselves when once again they were working overtime. They could talk for hours; it seemed that Mr Urquart took as much pleasure in her Scottish accent (although she was working on it) as she did in his (faint as it was). He often asked her about childhood in Scotland, about life in the parish house, and about her mother, her brothers, even Aunt Pat, the writer, and Aunt Pat's friend, the teacher. He seemed to want to know all about growing up a bookish child in Dundee, about the workings of an extended family, and about dorm life and lessons at Hogwarts.

The reason, Minerva discovered, was that the Deputy Head had had none of that.

Interestingly enough, it turned out that Elphinstone Urquart was the only child of an old childhood friend of Miss Roberts's. Jane Nott had married well; her husband had been the British Magical Consul of the Gold Coast Colony, and Jane his devoted wife, who hadn't strayed an inch from her husband's side, even when a child was born to them in the hot and feverish climate of Cape Coast.

Thus, Elphinstone had never known the noise and excitement, the fights and the companionship of Hogwarts life. Instead, he'd grown up in a dim, colonial mansion, with fans that fought ineffectual battles against heat and mosquitoes, and with few friends apart from books, lizards, and the local children whom he would seek out as often as he managed to escape his ever-present mother and the governess _du jour_. He'd had little schooling apart from what the governesses had managed to teach a reticent child in a sweltering heat that didn't allow for long sessions, and the instruction in medicine and potions that his mother had insisted on. And then, of course, there had been his father's library.

How exactly it had come that he'd ended up alone in London at age nineteen, he never said, and Minerva never asked. She also didn't wonder much. After all, it wasn't as if _she_had been much of a family person of late. Perhaps - and Minerva found it not all that improbable - Mr Urquart was a homosexual. It would explain why he rarely spoke of personal acquaintances, and why the stories of his youth always ended at age ten and resumed only with his arrival in Britain in 1921. Minerva had read about homosexuals in a book that she'd found in one of the boxes Miss Roberts had given her. They generally seemed to have a bit of a troubled youth and appeared not to like to talk about it except anonymously. They also quite often seemed to have a taste for opera.

And it suited Minerva just fine if it should be so. It spared her the trouble of worrying how friendly she could be without being misunderstood, and whether the invitations for tea breaks were really just that. She enjoyed their talks too much to want to be on her guard all the time.

Yes, those tea breaks. Many were the days when she left the office no earlier than eight in the evening because once again they'd taken a short tea break for a little chat about Scotland - and somehow found themselves soaring off on a tangent that spanned early Celtic law, the Roman invasion, the beauty of Tuscan sculpture, the advantages of Verdi over Puccini (Minerva) or Puccini over Verdi (Urquart), and what the climate of West Africa did to a violin, complete with what Mr Urquart professed to be a truthful imitation of the audible effects. Pomona had begun teasing Minerva that she and her boss had become as good as an old couple, and one day as she went down the corridor to lunch, Minerva had overheard Mr Crouch's and Mr Benson's secretaries discussing the adequacy of keeping an assistant working such long hours. But then again, Minerva had nothing else to do with her time, did she, and since Mr Urquart obviously was a lonely heart, too, perhaps it was all for the better that he'd been assigned the spinsterish maiden instead of a woman with a life so he might have at least someone to talk to apart from his dog.

Minerva had said nothing and simply smiled to herself. Lonely hearts or not, she didn't believe that she could possibly have been assigned a better boss.

The fact that, with slim hands and narrow hips, with unassuming movements, a clear-cut, clean-shaven chin, and a more than extraordinarily shapely behind for a man his age, Elphinstone Urquart also was unusually _handsome_as far as bosses went - well, that was something Minerva would only admit to be a pleasant extra benefit.

~/~


	2. Chapter 2: Bloomsbury

**Bloomsbury, London, April 1945**

If asked, Elphinstone Urquart would agree that life, in general, was good.

How could it not be, if one had a comfortable flat with a fireplace and a gramophone, a fulfilling and well-paid job, and the freedom to fill one's days as one pleased? If, on top of that, one had the satisfaction of having worked hard for one's place in the world, with nobody to thank except one or two kind people? How could life not be good with a dog by one's feet and Handel in the air?

Taking a puff from a pipe, Elphinstone leaned back. It was Friday evening, the end of the working week. Elphinstone had traded the Ministry robes for a slim-cut smoking jacket, put on a gramophone record, and sat down in the armchair by the fireplace, feet warmed by Orfeo who had curled up on the hearthrug and was chasing rabbits in his sleep.

It used to be that Elphinstone looked forward to Friday evenings. Not that work wasn't satisfying; it certainly was that, especially for someone who had started out as a mere clerk. Still, weekends had always been sacred. No overtime on Fridays, no work taken home for Saturdays and Sundays. Those were the days for walks and books, for dinner with a few, select friends, and for a premiere at Covent Garden now and then. In short, days to enjoy life's little pleasures.

Also, weekend days were days of freedom. One could get some curious questions when one had grown up in a colony, often liberally studded with veiled criticism of a mother who subjected her offspring to a climate like that, or a father who should either have done better for Britain or not have been down there in the first place (as if young Elphie had ever been asked). Eventually, conversations would inevitably turn to why the Consul and his wife never visited, and why Elphinstone wasn't in International Magical Cooperation; surely the Consul could have landed a son of his in a better entry position than that of a simple clerk?

Few were the people in Wizarding Britain who didn't ask such questions. Kettleburn's young apprentice was a rare exception, a young woman with whom Elphinstone had begun to strike up a tentative friendship over a sprained paw some time ago. Frederick Johnson from the British-West African Wizarding Society was another one. And then, of course, there was Griselda Marchbanks.

But then, Griselda Marchbanks had known Elphinstone much _longer_than anyone else in these latitudes.

It had been a perfect coincidence that they'd met again, back on Elphinstone's first day in London, in April 1921. Elphinstone had been strolling down Diagon Alley, looking for new robes, a place to live, perhaps an offer for a position as a clerk or shop assistant somewhere. And then, suddenly, at the bargain table of Flourish & Blott's, something about a woman across the table had seemed oddly familiar. She was short, clad in impeccable, high-necked robes, her dark blonde curls cropped short like a man's, and a pince-nez in front of inquisitive eyes that forever seemed a tad narrowed, especially when they scrutinised book titles - or insubordinate ten-year-olds.

No, even after almost ten years, there could be no doubt that this was the traveller from London who had stayed with them for a month before she travelled on to join a lady friend in Calabar, back in September 1911.

The woman hadn't looked up yet. Elphinstone's first impulse had been to turn around, go back to Master Malkin's, perhaps, on the pretence of having forgotten to buy gloves, or simply to disappear in the crowd. But that would have been cowardly - unmanly, really. And besides, if one encountered Griselda Marchbanks on one's first day in England, how big were the chances that one could avoid her forever?

And so, Elphinstone decided to take a heart. "Ma… Madam Marchbanks?"

The woman looked up. She frowned, as if she couldn't fathom for the life of her who this tall, slender creature in the khaki travelling robes might be. Then, after a breath or two, her forehead smoothed, and she took the pince-nez from her nose. She nodded, mostly to herself, and slowly extended her hand.

"Mr Urquart, I gather?"

It had been the beginning of a friendship that now entered its twenty-fifth year. After a sigh of relief at the greeting, Elphinstone had followed Griselda to the tea parlour, where she'd ordered Fortescue's Monumental Tea for Two, suspecting (quite rightly) that her guest was ravenous. Griselda hadn't asked any questions. She'd simply spoken to Elphinstone as if it had been the most natural thing on earth that they should walk into each other in Diagon Alley on a Monday afternoon, and declared that lunch would be served at her house this Sunday at one.

They'd taken it from there, and indeed, little by little, Elphinstone had begun to talk. Several Sunday lunches, a few teas, and more than a few bottles of wine later, Griselda Marchbanks had learned how the rebellious ten-year-old she had met at the Consul's had come to be the serious-faced youth in pinstripes who sat across from her in her Islington parlour, cigarette in hand and eyes that looked as if they desperately wanted to be optimistic.

It wasn't until Elphinstone had finished that Griselda had asked her first question: "So. Now what?"

Elphinstone had shrugged. "Try to find a job, make myself a life, I suppose."

Griselda readjusted her pince-nez, the better to look across it. "Love?"

"Perhaps," Elphinstone had answered, and it had come out more defiantly than intended.

"A woman's?"

No answer.

"You know that with a little skill you'd have a good chance at keeping a wife from discovering your secret if that's what you want." She took a sip from her teacup. "Is it?"

"No," Elphinstone whispered.

"Good." Griselda set down her cup, got up to retrieve her wand from the desk, and turned around to face Elphinstone. "I will lend you my support. I daresay you'll need it on occasions. I will also always have an open ear for you. But there is one thing I cannot accept, and that is betraying the confidence of a loved one. Mind you, living without lying to someone you care for will be difficult for you, sometimes even impossible, and there will be times when you will curse your fate, honesty, perhaps even wizardkind. But if this is what you truly want, then I will be there for you. No matter what happens." Her face broke into a faint smile. "Consider me your adopted maiden aunt."

Griselda fell silent again. The only sounds in the room were the tick-tick-ticking of the grandmother clock and a rustle of Griselda's robes when the cat brushed by her legs. Only when she saw Elphinstone give a slow nod at last did she continue. "Give me your papers."

"My papers?"

"Of course. I want to see what you've done to them in order to get here." She took the bundle of parchment, shook her head, and tutted. Again, again, and again. "This won't do. Not at all. Solid work for a non-Hogwarts nineteen-year-old, and no doubt good enough for the Muggles who got you here, but the Ministry will see right through this."

"The Ministry?"

"Naturally. Where else do you think a bright young lad such as you should work?" She spread out the papers on her desk and pointed her wand at a spot on the first one, then repeated the procedure on the others. "There."

~ / ~

In the days that followed, Griselda had provided Elphinstone with an interview in the Department of Magical Law Enforcement, persuaded an old friend to let out two rooms in her Chelsea terrace at an affordable rate, and then proceeded to buy a small bottle of Firewhisky and a pack of fine cigarettes for both of them, to celebrate the successful signing of two contracts.

Those early years had been little short of blissful. Going to work each day, being a respected, contributing member of society (working for the Ministry, no less), having money to spare for a bit of creature comfort, eventually for a bigger flat and a gramophone, and later still, being promoted to a job with an office of one's own, to which one could easily bring a well-behaved dog - it surpassed everything young Elphinstone had dreamed of, poring over the books of the library in the Consul's mansion. Even a few friendships had happened over the years, honest friendships with people who took one as one was. Horace, for example, who would never judge a fellow lover of Handel and Havanas, and Wilhelmina, who never judged, period.

And if one thing was missing to make life truly perfect, well, one couldn't have it all, could one?

Oh, it wasn't as if the attempt had never been made, at least for the mere physical side of it. The first had been with a Muggle lady from the South Bank, one sweltering night in August 1927, when heat and loneliness and the burning desire for the experience, _finally_the experience, had proved too much to be tempered with a cold bath and some music. But the knowledge that the woman's moans had been for money (and probably a good deal of pity) had filled Elphinstone with more shame and embarrassment than any kind of pleasure could have compensated for - if there had been any pleasure to begin with.

A second occasion had presented itself a year later, in the form of a bob-haired, cigarette-smoking woman in a West End nightclub. But when, after who-knew-how-many dances and a few drinks (very few on Elphinstone's part, rather more on the lady's), the parted lips and the silk-sheathed thigh couldn't possibly issue the invitation even more clearly - well, Elphinstone had simply been unable to do anything but mutter a polite excuse, kiss the lady's hand, and disappear into the night, never to return to the world of Muggle nightlife.

What good was a moment of exaltation if what one really wanted was to be loved for what one was?

That night, Elphinstone had made a decision. The flat would be refurbished, the paint done up, new bookcases fitted and a fireplace installed. A gramophone would be bought, a cooking course booked, and a subscription to Covent Garden taken out, cost what it might. Life would be as comfortable as it could be. Home would be a place of quiet, dependable happiness, with a tail-wagging companion to provide warmth and laughs, and with always an open door for whoever would come to share dinner, a glass, or simply some talk.

But Elphinstone Urquart wasn't made for this thing they called love.

The conviction remained firmly in place. It was surprisingly easy to live by. Elphinstone wasn't one to go out looking for adventure; 1921 had been adventurous enough for a lifetime, thank you most kindly. Anyway it wasn't often that a shapely behind, say, a smooth voice, or an intelligent conversation made Elphinstone's heart beat faster. It was rarely anything that a bit of music, and sometimes, though very rarely, a wandering hand in the dark couldn't fix.

Certainly, Muggles had clubs for all sorts of people, thus probably also for the Elphinstones of the world. But Elphinstone wasn't a nightlife kind of person; this much was clear. The dim light, the cheap silk, the air thick with smoke and too-heavy perfume, and then the knowledge that so many couples didn't survive the stress of a secret life, of a love that had no place outside dingy bars and small flats, had invariably left Elphinstone with nothing but a stale taste in the mouth and a lump in the chest.

No, as things were, Elphinstone was happiest living the quiet life of a bachelor with a place in society. If that meant renouncing twosomeness, well, then so be it. Countless people had managed before, and so had Elphinstone.

Until Minerva McGonagall arrived.

She had struck Elphinstone the day she'd first introduced herself, with the brisk handshake of the well-mannered middle-class girl, confident for her top marks at Hogwarts and a height of a good five foot ten in her boots. She was the angular type, not mannish, but the kind that defied classical standards of female beauty with her pulled-back hair and unpowdered face, and the robes that were so unlike what Crouch's and Benson's trainees considered work attire. It was refreshing.

She was also a young woman with a head of her own. Miss Brown and Miss Quirrell weren't exactly discreet, and thanks to of the DMLE's tea kitchens being right next to the Wizengamot Administration Office, Elphinstone already liked this Minerva McGonagall even before she presented herself for her job interview.

~ / ~

_"Turned him _down_, can you believe it? Huge farm, all his own land, supplies cheese to the King himself, they say. All because she doesn't want to give up a 'part of herself.' Part of herself, Merlin's suspenders. As if a bit of magic wouldn't come in handy on a farm now and then."_

"_Oh, please. Can you see Minerva McGonagall doing nothing but milking spells and ploughing charms for the rest of her life? Didn't they say she'd won a scholarship for Salem?"_

_"Something like that."_

_"So maybe she wanted to do more with her life than farming. A career, like."_

_"And look where it got her. No Salem, no MacGregor, instead a secretarial job at the Ministry. I'd have taken the farm any day."_

_"Maybe she's going to save money to go and study."_

_"Oh, I can just picture it._

_Professor McGonagall…"_

_"Who knows? I wouldn't put it past her. She got a scholarship once; she may get it again. And it's not exactly as if she's_

inviting _suitors."_

_"You can say that again. If she goes on dressing like my shrivelled spinster aunt, I bet she'll have enough time for her books to become a professor well before either of us have children."_

_"Oh, bag it. You're just jealous …"_

~ / ~

It was fair to say that Elphinstone had never looked forward to an interview as much as to this one. And indeed, Minerva McGonagall had not disappointed. In simple, narrow-cut robes with a high neck, she looked a good five years beyond her age. She also _spoke_a good five years beyond her age, in a soft brogue that reminded Elphinstone of a childhood as it might have been. She was intelligent, she was professional, she didn't mind overtime. She would be perfect.

Yet at that point, Elphinstone would not have thought that a mere six months later, Minerva McGonagall would have become the reason why Monday morning had replaced Sunday dinner with Griselda as the highlight of Elphinstone's week. Their tea breaks were a delight, and because the two of them were an exceptionally fast-working team, they could afford many of them. And over the weeks and months, Elphinstone had discovered that images of Minerva had begun to strike at the oddest hours of the day, images of a neck bowed above a scroll, of a surprisingly large hand massaging the bridge of a nose when Minerva had been reading too long without remembering to increase the light.

By the time the days grew shorter, the images had started to make an appearance in Elphinstone's nights.

When the lights were out, when the world was quiet and dark and not quite real, the Deputy Head of the Wizengamot Administration Service had finally given up trying to keep the mind from wandering. For a few weeks, the attempts had even been successful. But every impeccably-drafted protocol, every childhood anecdote shared, every joke about tea preferences and every glance at the narrow waist and those perfect, small breasts chipped away at the resolve and fed the imagination. What it might be like to touch Minerva. What her hair would smell like, how the warmth of her body might feel, or her lips, how her spine would respond to the caresses of a hand. What she would look like, collar buttons undone, hair coming down from her bun. How long might it be? Waist-long? Frayed at the tips, in that quaint, earthy way of the woman who never had it cut? Or shorter than that, thick and even-ended and perhaps a bit wavy?

It was when Elphinstone's hand had begun to join the mind in its nightly perambulations, when the mind had begun to make it Minerva's hand that wandered there in the dark, that the realisation struck.

This could not go on.

And more was quite out of the question, too. Minerva wanted her job; more than that, she _needed_ it. It would be cruel to confront her with an advance that would make her uncomfortable. And wouldn't it be even crueller if the unthinkable became true? If she talked herself into more than collegial feelings for her much older boss? For crying out loud, the girl was _nineteen_.

There was a solution. Elphinstone had been pondering it for a while. It might make Elphinstone's working days considerably sadder, but it would be the best that ever happened to Minerva, professionally. And wasn't that what one wanted if one cared for a person? To make her happy, to give her wings rather than tie her down in an impossible constellation, or in a job that was beneath her, like a beautiful canary bird kept to brighten an old bachelor's days?

The fire crackled. A ring of smoke made its way up from the slender pipe, and a hand reached down to Orfeo, who had curled up by the armchair and snored lightly.

When the smoke ring dissolved, Margaret Elphinstone Urquart, daughter of Consul Archibald and Lady Jane Urquart, First Secretary of the British-West African Wizarding Society and Deputy Head of the Wizengamot Administration Service, had made her decision.

~/~


	3. Chapter 3: Salem and Hogsmeade

~/~

_"He's going to do _what_?"_

_"I'm telling you. Hilda from the DIMC told me. He sent a dispatch to Salem if they'd still take Minerva, and they answered by return Floo post. She's getting a scholarship plus an allowance for some kind of assistant work for that director of theirs."_

_"Professor _Gamp_?"_

_"What do I know? And since when do you know American professor types?"_

_"You know, some of us actually _did_ read those career pamphlets back then?"_

_"Oh, like Salem was only waiting for you!"_

_"A girl can dream, can't she? I wasn't so bad at Charms. I mean, not Salem material, but the Open Magical Institute might've had me, perhaps. Only my Transfiguration wasn't up to standard, and what with my people not having money for a tutor, and Dumbledore, well, you know what he was like when you weren't totally brill and all that … like he didn't even _see_ you, some of the time. Well, spilled beans and sour grapes; I'll get over it. Anyway, yes, Tituba Gamp is a ruddy living _legend_ in Transfiguration."_

_"Wow. And she wants our Minerva?"_

_"Exactly. And Benson lets Urquart give her an allowance for books out of his own budget. I just wrote the memo."_

_"Damn. The old coot will miss her miserably. Pass me a cigarette?"_

_"Here. True. But you know what? She didn't say a word, of course, buttoned up as she is, but from the way she looked at lunch, I think she'll miss him, too. Coffee?"_

_"Oh my ... You know, they may be silly old fossils, the two of them, but they're somehow … sweet."_

_"Uh-huh."_

_"Here's to lonely hearts, love."_

_"Lonely hearts."_

~/~

Cape Cod, 28 May 1951

Dear Mr Urquart,

I do not know if it is bad manners to address a gentleman about his age, but as your secretary (which in spirit I still am) I consider myself entitled to the knowledge of your date of birth and not out of line when I shout you a hearty: Happy fiftieth! I hope Orfeo is still giving you joy, though whether I should wish that he has a present for you, I am not sure. Too well do I remember what you wrote about the last one he brought you, though it was certainly meant kindly. But canine gifts or no, I do wish you a splendid day.

I am also happy to report that your investment into my future has finally borne fruit in the shape of an official, signed, and stamped degree certificate in Advanced Transfiguration Studies and Applied Arithmancy. I am enclosing a copy, since it is not only my achievement but yours as well. As you see, we did not do too poorly.

As agreed, I had planned to come back to London in July and talk to you about my further prospects at the Ministry. Alas, I have to tell you that a small matter came up on which I'd love your opinion. You see, after the graduation ceremony Professor Gamp took me aside and asked if I would be interested in pursuing - a doctorate! Now, she does not often take on doctoral candidates (the last one, I hear, was Rhonda Lecouvreur from New Orleans), so the honour is considerable, and I admit that I am tempted. However, I would never do it if I could not be sure of your unconditional approval. You have been so kind to get me this scholarship, and even to sponsor me from your own budget (don't think I didn't know that; there is such a thing as office grapevine - by the way, how are the Twittering Twins?) With all that you have done for me, I would hate to make you feel as if I were taking advantage of you and/or the Ministry.

If, however, you were to think that the title "Dr McGonagall" would suit me well, you would certainly not be allowed to spend even more money on me that you already did. In fact, I would be able to pay back some of it from the research grant I've been offered, and you would not be able to dissuade me from doing so. (Try me. I didn't grow up with two brothers for nothing.)

Please do let me know what you think. If you or anyone else at the Ministry wish to see me back this summer, I will be.

Since this missive is too long for a postcard, I am enclosing a picture of Cape Cod, showing yours truly and my roommate Augustine Delacour, whom you may remember from my last. Augustine took her degree in Charms and Applied Transfiguration (with honours) and will soon start as an entry-level teacher here at the Institute. We are currently rewarding ourselves with a little holiday by the beach, eating far too much and otherwise diligently avoiding any useful pursuit.

Please give my love to dear old Hogsmeade if you are going there again this June. (If so, I'm hoping the owl will find you.) It is beautiful here, but I will never get used to the climate! And do give Orfeo a ruffle behind the ears; I miss him dearly, especially in the winters.

I look forward to your next and send you my warmest regards,  
>Minerva<p>

~/~

**Hogsmeade, A Week Later**

The lake lay in silence. It was four o'clock in the morning, and the air was fresh and smelled of dew. The first smudges of dusty rose were beginning to appear behind the eastern mountains, and birds that couldn't yet be seen chattered loudly in the trees.

A fish jumped somewhere in the middle of the lake, leaving small ripples in the surface. Otherwise, the water was as peaceful and undisturbed as ever, as if it had never been nor would ever be any different.

Elphinstone took care not to make too much noise as she walked past the lake towards her favourite spot. Too beautiful was the sound of the birds' early morning concert, accompanied here and there by the faint splash of a fish jumping at a distance, and by Orfeo's breaths by her side.

On a grassy patch behind an overgrown tongue of land, well out of sight from the village, Elphinstone put up a folding stool and took a fishing rod out of a wicker basket. A flick of the wand extended it to its regular size, and another produced a jar of worms. Fish weren't in abundance in this corner, but the spot overlooked the largest part of the lake, right up to where the water disappeared between the ragged mountains. It was a perfect place for thinking. Or "bathing worms", as Elphinstone called the exercise.

Minerva's letter lay in the basket, carefully wrapped and safely tucked away behind the tobacco satchel and the fishing licence.

It had arrived a few days before, on Elphinstone's birthday precisely. The day had begun with a call from Griselda in the morning, who had brought fresh rolls and a few slices of smoked salmon, and there had been plenty of well-meaning owls from colleagues (and tobacco suppliers, pet shops, as well as Gringott's retirement fund manager, who diligently reminded Elphinstone that old-age poverty was creeping closer with each birthday). The landlady's four-year-old had brought flowers - a beautiful, engaging child, already quite the miniature landlady herself - and Wilhelmina had sent an owl with a bag of dog treats and an invitation for a beer.

And then, around four, when Griselda had left and Elphinstone was just getting ready to call Orfeo for an afternoon stroll through the forest, an owl had arrived, wearing the red-and-blue collar of the Transcontinental Floo Post Central in London.

Elphinstone and Minerva had continued to correspond regularly during Minerva's time in Salem, four or five times a year, perhaps. She'd sent detailed reports of student life both inside and outside the classrooms, and Elphinstone had reciprocated with stories from the office, some grapevine peppered up with gossip, and with regular parcels containing everything an exiled Scotswoman might miss. Little by little, their letters had become longer, and something else had changed as well: as the years progressed, Elphinstone noticed a growing and most becoming confidence in Minerva. The confidence of a woman who knew that she'd never be a secretary again, and who had found her voice and vocation.

The float bobbed lightly, once, twice, then a bit harder. Then it stopped, but it didn't go down. Not that Elphinstone had expected it; she'd arrived at the conclusion that the only way for her to actually catch a fish from this lake would be if the fish laughed itself dead at the attempt. Thus, Elphinstone pulled the line back, and indeed, the hook was quite bare. Wasn't the first time that the fish had simply nibbled off the bait and taken off.

She caught the line in her hand and replaced the worm. "Second course, my lads," she said as she took a good swing.

Fish or no fish, there was something oddly steadying about sitting there like a rock, making no noise, focussing on a tiny red dot in the water while all around, nature was getting ready for another sunrise that could be trusted to come as it had come the day before and the day before that. The flowers would open, the birds would begin to fly, and every living thing would go about its merry way, making the best of its time wherever it had been put. That birch sapling over there didn't have it easy, growing out of its crack on the windiest side of the cliff. It would never be one of the proudest, tallest, the kind that birds chose for nesting, but that didn't keep it from trying to become the best tree it could be, given the circumstances. It never seemed to question nature for having put it there in that barren, narrow crack instead of a grove where it might be a straight, healthy birch among birches.

But then, it also got no letters from Minerva McGonagall.

Elphinstone couldn't say what had affected her most about Minerva's last letter: the fact that she wouldn't come home, that she'd stay in Salem, and upon her return, would be far overqualified for any job the DMLE could offer - or the image of Minerva and Mlle Delacour, waving from a cliff top with a lighthouse in the background.

She was an intriguing sort, the young Frenchwoman. Taller than Minerva by half a head at least, and apparently a bit of a horsewoman, judging by the jodhpurs and the helmet-friendly ponytail at her neck. She had an angular face, tanned and a bit reddened from the sun and the salty spray, probably. They looked relaxed, both of them.

Ironic, really, if it should be as Elphinstone suspected.

Oh, Elphinstone wouldn't bet galleons on whether they were lovers. They might very well not be. Minerva had never said anything about romantic interests; perhaps she wasn't the type to go out looking for romance (though why she would tell her boss if she were was yet another matter.) But these two certainly looked at home with one another, in the way that Elphinstone had so often seen in free women who had found someone with whom to share their lives, their dreams, and their worries.

Damn crack in the cliff, Elphinstone thought.

What if life had been any different? If it had been young Margaret who disembarked at Southampton, with a reference from her father for a position as a - well, not a governess, but perhaps a secretary at the DIMC? A secretary she might well still be now, albeit a senior one, and certainly a bit of an oddity with not much more of a social life than the Elphinstone who had gone on to become vice-Department Head. But she might have struck up a friendship with a young colleague, perhaps travel with her, to Italy or to the Canaries, and who knew what might have been?

Futile thoughts, but there they were.

Still, it _was_ ironic to think that one reason why Elphinstone had spent years dissuading herself from an advance towards Minerva was that she wasn't enough of a man, and now wondered whether the problem wasn't rather that she wasn't enough of a _woman_.

And yet, she couldn't regret the choice she'd made that night in Cape Coast, on the eve of the arrival of the Southampton steamer, when she'd packed her trousers and shirts, blotted out the hated first name and the two letters that designated her as a _fe_male, and entered her father's study to communicate her decision to him.

Archibald Urquart had nodded pensively. He'd got up from his chair, approached his offspring, and extended his hand.

"I will not say that you can come back," he had said. "I know that you won't if you can at all help it, and your mother ... But if you want to let Miss Trent from the Mission know how you are once in a while, and if you would turn to her if you need anything ..."

"Thank you, Father," Elphinstone had said, and they'd shaken hands.

Which was more than she could say about her farewell from her mother. Mrs Urquart had sat in the armchair, the languishing expression in her face she'd taken to displaying whenever she saw her offspring gallivanting around in trousers, and looked out of the window.

"Goodbye, Mother."

There had been no answer.

And so Elphinstone had walked out of the door, past her old childhood friend, who was tending to the flowerbeds. He had said nothing, had simply taken a charm off his necklace and pressed it into her hand. Funny how he'd really been the only person around who had never questioned Elphinstone's tomboyish ways, indeed never even seemed to have wondered whether the white child had been boy or girl. Her father and mother had consulted books on children like her, torn whether what they had raised was a sinner or an invalid. Miss Trent from the Mission had been less undecided, albeit much milder in her approach. Yet for Kabina, his siblings, and the children from the neighbourhood, little had seemed to matter less about Elphinstone than whether she wore skirts or trousers.

Figures, Elphinstone thought. She'd already had her skin. Who'd have cared if she also had a penis on top?

Thus, she'd left Cape Coast, left her mother and the maid and the missionary ladies with whom she'd never felt any womanly kinship, left the father whom she'd admired and who'd tried his best to see her as one of his kind but never quite managed, in order to live the life that she wanted - that of a free man. Sometimes Elphinstone wondered if she had made the same choice if she had met more Wilhelminas, or _any_ Wilhelminas when she was a girl. Or if a white, upper-class woman could have become a seaman or a merchant or an engineer who drilled wells. Maybe she would, maybe she wouldn't. In any case, as things were, in the same situation under the same conditions, she'd always have made the same choice again, and she wouldn't for the life of her give up her sort of life _now_, even if it were possible without disclosing that she'd forged her documents.

No, Elphinstone liked being a man.

Not that she coveted the anatomy too much; she owned what it took to create the feeling and the impression whenever she wanted to, but most of the time she could wear it or leave it alone. Especially since the one time she'd actually _used_it, it hadn't given the woman pleasure but rather made Elphinstone feel like an intruder. The experience had been quite different from what the tall tales of the sailors on the Southampton steamer had led her to believe.

No, it wasn't so much the body Elphinstone wanted. It was the life. The ability to be comfortable, in clothes that allowed one to breathe and move and claim space, in postures that kept one steady, in simply walking down a street like that, alone or in company, broad daylight or night. People who listened even if one made a controversial point, who didn't attribute it to organic disorders when tempers ran a little high, and who found nothing odd in one smoking a cigar or applying for a better-paid position. Who _paid_one better for that position in the first place. Doing something for society, not only in the way that was considered proper for a woman, but as a shaper of things, as a fighter for causes. And, most importantly, the feeling that one was finally one of those to whom one felt most alike.

Of course, times had changed since Elphinstone had made her decision. And while she never considered giving up being a man, she had begun to find it less and less unthinkable to disclose who she really was to her friends. One had to be careful whom to trust, but it was possible. After all, hadn't Griselda, Horace, and Wilhelmina all kept her secret perfectly well? Had Minerva returned this summer, and had she taken up a position in a different department, who knew if she and Elphinstone might not have grown close enough, eventually, to become, if certainly not lovers, then at least friends.

But now there was the doctorate, and there was Augustine.

The sun had long risen from behind the mountains, and the fish had finished off the last of the worms. Slowly, Elphinstone tucked away the fishing rod, folded up the stool, and whistled for Orfeo, who had curled up on a sun-lit patch of grass.

When she had returned home, she sat down by the small desk in her room and took out quill and parchment.

She wrote:

_Hogsmeade, 4 June 1951_

_Dear Miss McGonagall, M.M.,_

_I am writing to you using your title because you should enjoy it as much as you can while you have it. I fully expect to be addressing my correspondence to Dr McGonagall in the not-too-distant future (although Orfeo and I should be even gladder to address Dr McGonagall in person upon her return.)_

_Hogsmeade is quite its own, quaint, slightly rainy but distinctly scenic self these days…_

~/~


	4. Chapter 4: Ministry and Covent Garden

**Ministry of Magic, Level Seven, June 1956**

_Toc, toc, toc _went her heels on the stone floor.

Minerva stifled a smile as she marched down the corridor of Level Seven. Funny how the sound of a woman's steps could change with her position. Take the Twittering Twins, for example, leisurely clicking away on high heels, never in a rush because they knew they had everything under control that was the secretary's domain (and probably a good deal that wasn't), and anyway, where to should they hurry? Or Mafalda's light, quick, no-nonsense steps, business-like, eager to get ahead as swiftly as she could in the pencil skirt and pumps of the high-potential clerk. Then the young tomboy who had just strode past her, with the Morse code of quick, sturdy _thuds_of leather soles saying, "Auror trainee, only woman among men, shortest legs of the lot." And Professor Marchbanks's muffled shuffling, slowed down by arthritis and a good dose of dignity, old-fashioned robes swishing gently and almost noiselessly. The Head of the Department of Magical Education didn't require sound to announce her presence.

They would all be joined now by Dr Minerva McGonagall, as of three minutes ago Senior Examiner at the Ludicrous Patents Office and Head of the Section for Magical Object Engineering.

The interview had been a mere formality, but she had dressed for the occasion nevertheless. Master Malkin had fitted her with a new robe, not her usual, professional black over eggshell blouses, but a nice shade of emerald that Minerva liked rather well. They had tried all sorts of colours - Gryffindor burgundy first, of course, and then navy blue, for the borderline Ravenclaw. But, much to her surprise, it had been the colour of the ambitious lot from the Dungeons that had won the day.

"How could it not be," Master Malkin had gushed. "It is you to a tee. Understated and unostentatious, yet with a certain temperature to it that betrays the fierceness of the woman beneath, a natural hue that underscores your unique Highland features."

Minerva sincerely hoped that the man's niece would take over the business _soon_.

In any case, the emerald green it had been. High-cut as always it was, the first custom-fitted robe of her life, but comfortable as a nightgown, and with not an unwanted fold where she never quite filled the off-the-shelf ones and had too little magical sewing skill to remedy it.

She had also indulged in a new pair of boots. A pair of full brogues had somehow seemed fitting, and after a little alteration of the colour, Minerva went home with a pair of calf-high lace-up boots with an English heel, emerald green with a black wingtip cap. She also went home with a considerably lighter purse.

Thus clad, she now stood in the lift of the Ministry, on her first day back, and asked for Level Two.

It was good to be back. Salem had been wonderful, but she was looking forward to a proper British summer again. Also, the stress of her work, compounded by a little stress in her domestic situation about a year ago, had taken its toll, and it would be nice to have back the regularity of Ministry hours and evenings at home alone for a change.

Work at the LPO wouldn't be as world-changing as in the DMLE, but it would be enjoyable nonetheless. Minerva had always taken pleasure in the technical and scientific intricacies of Transfiguration, and judging by her new boss, she would have a very free rein. Bricolatius Lovegood was enthusiastic, but he had little mind for things such as paperwork, schedules, deadlines, and accuracy. The Ministry didn't attach much importance to the LPO and had therefore never bothered about the time they needed to get anything done, so Minerva estimated that however much time she took for her cases, she would still speed up the procedures considerably.

And have time for tea breaks in Level Two, perhaps.

The lift had arrived. The golden grille opened, and Minerva stepped into the corridor, along with a charge of Auror trainees (including the tomboy), a flock of fluttering memos, and into the arms of Daisy Brown, who greeted her with a loud squeak and a firm squeeze. Minerva was just able to avert a kiss on the cheek. Striding down the corridor with a red lipstick mark on her cheek was all she supposed her new authority needed right now.

"Oh, he will be _so_ glad to see you! Down that corridor over there - surely he told you that he's the Head of the entire WAS now? And _guess_who is his secretary now? Go on in, I'll bring you tea! Two bags, is it?"

Minerva stopped short and smirked. "Daisy? Wait a second ..."

~ / ~

Elphinstone was sitting at her desk, signing letters that Daisy had brought in that morning. Crouch might have complained as he liked; Elphinstone found Daisy remarkably efficient. Certainly, she insisted on leaving at four if she'd started at seven, but the amount of work she could plough through in that time was staggering. How she managed to schedule court appointments via the Floo intercom, direct her copyquill, communicate with Miss Quirrell by what had to be eyeball Morse code, and paint her fingernails at the same time - it was quite beyond Elphinstone.

"Come in," she said when she heard a knock at the door.

"Good morning, boss! Care for some tea?" asked a familiar voice.

Elphinstone looked up. And indeed, behind Daisy's tea-tray, laden with a pot and two cups, a tin of Ginger Newts, there was …

"Dr McGonagall!"

"Oh, please, Mr Urquart." Minerva set down the tray and took both Elphinstone's hands into hers. "It's Minerva."

"Then it's Elphinstone."

They stood there for a while, not quite knowing where to begin. But the moment of awkwardness didn't last long, and when they were into their third cups of tea and had made a considerable dent into the Ginger Newt supply, they had covered just about anything from intercontinental Portkey trips, East Coast summers, Hogsmeade winters, office gossip, current Ministry business, and Rodelinda the Airedale puppy (Minerva had blinked away a tear when she looked at the framed picture of Orfeo on Elphinstone's desk.) And then, for the first time in the two years that Minerva had worked for Elphinstone and the ten years that she hadn't, she asked, quite without ado:

"And how is Elphinstone Urquart's _private_life?"

Elphinstone was a little surprised. Not that she minded, oh, not at all. It only was … a new side.

"Fine, as always," she said. "An old bachelor's life isn't very exciting, of course, but then, it's certainly quiet." She took a cigarette out of a silver case and paused briefly before she lit it. Minerva never had, back then, but then again, this wasn't exactly the Minerva from back then. With a questioning look, she held out the pack, and Minerva, cocking her head in a moment's hesitation, took one and allowed her former boss to light it for her. When they'd both leaned back again, Elphinstone continued.

"Miss Marchbanks still considers herself my adopted maiden aunt, for which I love her dearly, and with the Society I'm working on a programme for women's education in Ghanaian villages. Remind me to pester you for a subscription, now that you have a high-paying job. Oh, and I have to introduce you to Miss Grubbly-Plank one of these days; she's currently on a part-time job with the Department for the Regulation of Magical Creatures." She took a drag of her cigarette and resumed with a faint smile, "So, all in all, it's a fairly quiet life." And added, after a pause, "Besides, if I want drama, there's always opera."

At that, Minerva's eyebrows darted up. "Interesting that you should mention opera," she said. "In fact -" She opened her bag and fished out an envelope.

"I took a bit of a chance because I wasn't certain if you have any plans for Friday. But since you put so much effort into my sophistication, I thought I might demonstrate to you that it wasn't _all_in vain with a little token of gratitude …"

She handed over the envelope with a smile. Elphinstone opened it, closed it again, and rose with a formal bow.

"Dr McGonagall, it will be my great pleasure to pick you up at a location of your convenience, this Friday at four-thirty, for a drop of tea at Fortescue's before we storm the fortress of London's high culture."

~/~

**The Royal Opera House, That Friday**

_"Ombra mai fu  
>di vegetabile,<br>cara ed amabile,  
>soave più ..."<em>

In the semi-darkness of the grand tier box, illuminated by nothing but stage lights and the faint glow of the lamps in the orchestra pit, Minerva sat bent forward, her eyes fixed on a figure sitting in the shadow of a plane tree. There wasn't much in the world that could send shivers down her spine quite like the first tunes of a concert or an opera, after the chatter and the humming of a thousand men and women had died down, after the moment of silence when the lights had faded and the curtain gone up.

The singer's voice wasn't loud, but so warm and so full that it seemed to wrap itself around Minerva's shoulders like a robe of velvet. It quieted her mind and chased the day's tension from her body; she felt her breath deepen, and from the corner of her eye, she saw Elphinstone smile in her direction.

Ah, if only he knew …

There had been a reason why Minerva had chosen this piece over _Madam Butterfly_. Certainly, part of it had been that Handel was Elphinstone's favourite (and they never _could_agree on Puccini anyway). But there had been something else, something that had spoken to Minerva when she saw the announcement at the box office and remembered an aria that she had heard on Aunt Pat's scratchy gramophone, many years ago.

What Minerva remembered best about it was that she hadn't been able to tell if the singer had been a man or a woman. Aunt Pat had then showed her the cover of the record, and that had answered the question: it had been a woman, a dark-haired one with a rich, deep voice - but the part she'd sung was that of a man. Aunt Pat had told her that she sang of the beauty of nature, would later sing of an illicit infatuation, and then, at last, of a deep, lasting esteem for a woman who, for her part, had also been donning men's attire for the better part of the opera.

Looking back, Minerva found that it had been a fairly good foreshadowing of things to come in her own life.

Nature, yes, she'd certainly have had that with Dougal, what with life on a farm and all, as a married woman and mother of several. A proper life for a Scottish minister's daughter. True, there had been some infatuation as well, so the propriety might well have come with some pleasure - and yet she'd never regretted that she'd forsaken the life of a farmer, wife, and mother for that of an unmarried office girl.

It hadn't been that she hadn't _liked_Dougal. He'd probably have been as good a husband as she could have wished for, as far as husbands went. He'd been hard-working, humorous, and generously endowed with the pride of the farmer who would never produce poor cheese or unhappy beasts for a bit of extra profit.

He had also been endowed with something rather more worldly but certainly no less proud.

Oh yes, Minerva had enjoyed that bit rather much. Frequently, too. On a Christmas pageant in Dundee, the year Minerva had turned eighteen, they had discovered the appeal they held for each other. Dougal, whose little sister played Mary, had sought Minerva's company rather often during the rehearsals, and proved both helpful with the garland-making and amiable to talk to, in an unassuming, nature-boy sort of way. So one thing had come to another, and that Sunday, as Elspeth and Malcolm and Robert junior were reciting their lines under the benign eyes of the MacGregors and the McGonagalls, Minerva had made quick work of her chore of preparing the buffet, thanks to a bit of magic, and slipped out into the darkness, to a small niche between the church wall and the hedge, to find out what Dougal was like when he _didn't _talk.

The result had been encouraging.

Dougal had begun making formal calls at the McGonagalls the following day. The Reverend and Mrs McGonagall had been impressed by the quiet, polite boy, and little had they known that the walks the two young people liked to take, chaperoned by Minerva's two brothers (at least until the chocolate frogs offers started coming in), more often than not led them straight into a deserted barn, or, if it was too cold for that, in a shady corner of the vestry or the cellar of the MacGregor farm.

Their first attempts at more intimate encounters had been awkward, and probably Dougal had got more out of them than Minerva, physically speaking. But his caresses had felt good, and whether there might or might not be more to it for a woman, she'd certainly discovered the excitement and the pleasure of feeling Dougal's hand on her waist, on her breasts, and under her skirt. She'd discovered the excitement that gripped her the first time she felt his trousers bulge against her leg, when she slid her hand under his waistband and found - well, what it was that she found there. She'd enjoyed the feeling of his hardness, his begging for her strokes; she'd felt her pulse quicken at his excitement and his tenderness when he'd turned soft again, and she felt herself turning soft in return at his slow, careful efforts at reciprocating. And finally, on Hogmanay morning, she'd discovered the desire to feel him not just against her, not just in her hand, not just with his hand on her sex, but really and truly inside her. He hesitated, didn't want to at first, then promised he'd be careful, visibly torn between the desire and the feeling that he shouldn't. Minerva had simply nodded and said she'd be careful, too. He didn't _have_to know about the ointments Matron Flitwick taught her seventh-year girls, accompanied by a whole array of other advice.

There had been quite a bit of fumbling at first, but after some giggling and a few caresses, they'd managed rather nicely. She wanted him, and he felt good inside her, moving slowly and timidly at first, until Minerva first encouraged, then flat-out ordered him to be a bit more daring, and she matched his quickening thrusts with her own, a bit more every afternoon, until a day or two before she was to leave for Hogwarts, she found out. There was indeed more to it for a woman.

Minerva's last term at Hogwarts had simply flown by. Back at school, she dived into her work as always, for not even with a newly-awakened sexuality did a Minerva McGonagall neglect her studies. But, as soon as she had her seven NEWTS with top marks (plus the Potions one) in her pocket, she packed her trunk in record speed, glad that she didn't have to wait for the Hogwarts Express thanks to some excellent progress in long-distance Apparition, and was back in the barn within twenty-four hours.

Thinking back, it seemed to Minerva as if she had spent just about every free minute of May and June with Dougal in her arms, next to her, atop her, below her, and once or twice, kneeling in front of her. He'd obviously been reading in her absence. They also still took walks and talked and laughed, and generally enjoyed each other's company. And thus, nothing had seemed more natural at the time that after a mere two months, she had nodded when he had come to her, flowers and a ring in hand, after duly having consulted her parents.

Yet somehow, being engaged had turned out a much more sobering experience than she'd expected, and it hadn't just been because of Aunt Pat's and Miss Roberts's frowns when she announced the happy news that very afternoon.

That night, she'd begun to think.

Oh, she did enjoy Dougal's body, and she couldn't possibly imagine how it could be otherwise. She also enjoyed his conversation (even though there were limits), and he was as kind and honest as probably a man could be.

But would that be enough for a life? Would kindness and hard work and a common project carry her through the lifespan of a witch, and remain satisfying for decades to come? What about her magic? What about her work? What about the companionship and the ease and the comfort she had felt in her friendship with Pomona, with its confidentiality and the pettings and tendernesses that were of quite a different kind than those she shared with Dougal, but sweet in their own right? One couldn't have both, probably but would she be ready to give up her freedom quite _yet_?

Well, the result had been, she hadn't. She had liked Dougal, could perhaps even grow to love him - but infatuation, if that was what it was, was no reason not to be reasonable. Life on the MacGregor farm would mean no studies, little time for books, no academic talk by the fireplace, perhaps not even a friendship like that with Pomona. She'd never heard of married women having women friends who sometimes slept in their beds in the holidays, who talked and chuckled and sometimes even exchanged innocent kisses until well into the wee hours.

The morning after, she'd made up her mind. She'd been brief and concise about it, cruelly, perhaps, and with a heavy heart, but it would be for the best. It wouldn't have helped either of them if she had become emotional. Thus, she had simply gone over, explained her reservations, apologised out of the depth of her heart, and gave back the ring.

Then she'd applied to a secretarial job at the Ministry.

She hadn't thought much of the fact that she'd slowly found herself falling a bit in love a mere few months after she'd taken up her job. It was unusual, certainly, not least because the object of her little infatuation had been more than twice her age, and her boss, to boot. Besides, as suspected, he probably had other reasons not to reciprocate her feelings. Minerva was a rational thinker; she knew that it must have been some kind of transfer of affection on an unreachable object. Probably the mind did this to preserve one's freedom yet not fall out of practice in the emotional department. So she hadn't thought much of it, blamed it on recent experience, and gone on to enjoy her work and their tea breaks.

Then came Salem, and with it, Augustine.

That affair had been a long one, and a stormy one more often than not. They both had quick minds and sharp tongues. They could also be highly obstinate, and while that made for a chemistry and a tension that was certainly conducive to their love-life, it also made life a tad strenuous at times. Then again, there had been times when everything was as close to perfect as Minerva could have wished for. They'd had academic talks by the fireplace, with caresses that could sometimes lead to more talk, and sometimes to more caresses. They'd both left each other their freedom, had similar interests and dislikes, and a shared fondness of wind and lonely cottages.

Yet after six or seven years, it had become clear that they wouldn't last forever. Perhaps they'd been too confined in their two-bedroom apartment, and working next door to each other, too. Perhaps it had been their closeness in age and situation that sometimes made Minerva feel as if their needs were forever conflicting - when one of them was stressed over her dissertation, the other was busy establishing herself as a teacher, and when one of them worried about where she'd be in five years, well, the other had no idea, either.

Perhaps it had only been natural that they'd have had an exciting student life together, but no more than that. Still, it had been worth every row and every night of lovemaking, every fight and every talk, and even after they'd agreed to part ways, Minerva remained sure that having been the one-time lover of Augustine Delacour would remain very much a part of the history of the later Dr Minerva McGonagall.

And thus, all of that considered, she could indeed relate very well to the Persian king in the shadow of the plane tree, the man-woman in breeches, torn between the one he was betrothed to and the one he loved in a forbidden passion.

He'd make his choice in the last act. Minerva wasn't even sure she'd reached the intermission.

Thus far, she'd never told anyone about matters of the heart. She certainly had no intention of flaunting her inner life; she didn't quite know what good that would do. But a close word with a friend, the knowledge that someone knew and wanted to be her friend anyway - that, she would like. Her family wouldn't understand, and Pomona had worries of her own right now, trying to make ends meet with two children and no husband.

Her former boss, though?

He'd been good to her, and he'd responded more positively to Minerva's tentative advances into private matters than she'd have thought. Certainly, if anyone asked her, she'd probably have skipped the confession and thrown herself into his arms, face up and eyes open, especially if anyone asked her _now_, warmed up as she was by the music and an earlier glass of sparkling wine. She couldn't deny that the sizzle in her veins, the beauty of the music, the heat in her cheeks and the cool feeling of the low-cut silk dress were a heady mix that had probably added to the jolt of excitement that shot through her body when Elphinstone, in a dress coat and polished shoes, had laid a hand on the small of her back as he'd guided her into the box. And those hips, that gait, those hands with their smooth skin really _were_quite something, bubbles or no bubbles.

But it was out of the question, this much was certain. _She_ might not mind if she fell for man or woman. Elphinstone, though? She wasn't sure it worked like that for his sort. He liked her, certainly, but he'd never let on anything more. Good lord, he might even like her best for the fact that she _didn't_ seem the man-hunting sort, just as she, at first, had enjoyed his company because he didn't seem the _woman_-hunting sort. Besides, Pomona had said he'd been taking walks around the lake with a certain potions master …

And then, the music took over Minerva's thoughts, and for a while, she forgot about Augustine, forgot about Horace Slughorn, stopped mulling over who was a man or a woman and loved a woman or a man, and lost herself in the beauty of the voices and the clavichord, the costumes, and the dim glow of black suits, white shirts, and dark wood in the orchestra pit.

"You quite liked it, didn't you?" Elphinstone asked when he and Minerva filed out of the auditorium after the second act.

"Quite so," Minerva said. "Call me odd, but I admit I'm rather taken with the king."

"I'd be the last one to call you odd for that," Elphinstone said. It sounded strangely quiet.

They walked up to the bar, and Elphinstone procured two glasses of wine. Minerva had briefly considered sticking to water, but she'd thought better of it. She wasn't one even to _contemplate_talking of private matters easily. Gillywater would only make it unnecessarily harder.

When they had their drinks, they stepped on the balcony for a bit of air. Elphinstone took the silver cigarette case from his pocket and glanced questioningly at Minerva.

She nodded.

Of course, there was a hint of a breeze, and of course, they had to step into a corner, both their hands shielding the tips of the cigarettes when Elphinstone lit them.

"So, it's the king who got your attention, is it?" Elphinstone asked with a sideways glance at Minerva.

Minerva nodded, surprised that the question sounded gentle, not playful. Did he suspect something, in the end? She took a sip from her glass before she spoke.

"I don't quite know whether to see a man or a woman," she said tentatively. She hesitated before she continued. Yet there might never again be an opening as easy as this. "Would it shock you if I said that it intrigues me that I don't even care?"

"Not at all." Elphinstone took a long drag from his cigarette and stepped up to the balustrade, gazing out into the night. "In fact, I think the world would be rather nicer if more people didn't care if they saw the one or the other."

Inside, the bell rang for the second time. People walked past them, filing back into the auditorium. They were almost alone on the balcony.

"Let's continue this conversation when we have more time," Elphinstone said. He stubbed out his cigarette, and again, there was his hand in the small of Minerva's back, a bit shaky, if she wasn't mistaken.

The rest of the opera went by in a whirlwind. The mixture of wine, tobacco, and music made Minerva's head spin and her pulse beat faster, and it made time pass in a confusing but strangely pleasant blur. Women playing men, women playing women disguised as men, unveiling themselves to become women again and sink into the arms of women who _continued_to play men, while another woman playing a man married a woman who had never been anything but that - and a man by Minerva's side whom this intrigued perhaps as much as herself. Where else would his remark have come from?

~ / ~


	5. Chapter 5: Upstairs

During those last two acts, Minerva wasn't the only one whose thoughts were racing wild.

Their conversation in the intermission hadn't left Elphinstone untouched, either. Minerva's comment had come as a surprise - a pleasant surprise, but Elphinstone would have been less shaken up if she'd known how to pinpoint it. Did Minerva suspect anything? If so, what could possibly have given it away? Elphinstone had worked with people for decades, and nobody ever seemed to have guessed, or she'd have heard, through Griselda, most likely, or via the office grapevine that hung so spectacularly low in the tea kitchen of Level Two.

Or hadn't Minerva been talking about Elphinstone at all? Augustine's angular features came to mind, and the voice of the tall, broad-shouldered contralto in breeches and a sparkling, blue overcoat.

When everyone on the stage had been married off, the last chords had been played, and the singers had appeared to take their bows, Elphinstone and Minerva both sat there, deeply sunken into their respective thoughts. The applause had long died down when they left the auditorium, and they were among the last to obtain their coats and step outside into the Covent Garden night.

Elphinstone wasn't certain how to proceed. She'd never done this sort of thing before, especially not with a woman who had just confessed that she was intrigued by not caring whether she'd been watching men or women for two and a half hours. Elphinstone didn't want to seem pushy, yet a simple good-night seemed unduly abrupt.

"Might I escort you to your house?" she asked at last.

Minerva nodded. "That would be kind," she said. "I'd like to Apparate to a little back alley near my block from behind the Actors' Church. But only if it's no trouble for you."

"Nothing could be less trouble."

She offered Minerva her arm, and together they walked over to St Paul's in Covent Garden. When nobody was looking, they passed through the wrought-iron gate into the courtyard, slipped into a niche, and Minerva closed her eyes to Disapparate them together.

_Crack_.

A cat jumped up with a hiss when they materialised in a narrow alleyway between two brick buildings.

"This way," Minerva whispered, and she guided Elphinstone out to the road. They walked in silence for about a block and a half, until Minerva stopped by a corner. "It's right here," she said, and fell quiet again. Just as Elphinstone wondered if this was a cue for polite withdrawal, Minerva continued. "Will you join me for a nightcap?"

"I … I wouldn't like to impose."

"I wouldn't ask if you did."

"Then I would very much like to."

"Very well." A little smirk appeared on Minerva's face. "In this case, allow me to alter your appearance a wee bit." She retrieved her wand from her handbag, enlarged it back to its proper size, and held it above Elphinstone's collar. The cool sensation of a disillusionment charm trickled down Elphinstone's back.

"You see, I'm not allowed to have gentlemen callers," Minerva murmured. "I moved back into my old flat after I returned; I knew the place and I've always felt comfortable there. But it does have its disadvantages."

She unlocked the door, and together they walked up a narrow staircase.

"I'm sorry for the inconvenience," Minerva whispered. "But it's only three more flights."

After about fifty more steep steps, muffled by thick carpeting, they arrived in front of Minerva's door. She opened, restored a material appearance to Elphinstone, and Transfigured her desk chair into another armchair that floated over to its twin by the bookshelf.

"McDwaggin's?" she asked as she Summoned a shawl from the armchair and wrapped it around her shoulders.

"You're a Firewhisky sort of girl?" Elphinstone asked, an eyebrow raised in surprise.

"Single Malt only," Minerva answered. "None of that Ogden's swill."

"In that case, gladly," Elphinstone replied. Minerva uncorked the bottle, poured a dram each into two plain glass tumblers - no-nonsense as always - and handed one of them to Elphinstone. They toasted in silence.

Elphinstone, as well-versed in talk as any senior Ministry official, found herself strangely at a loss how to reopen the conversation. Perhaps there might never be a better moment to pick up the thread that the bell had cut off so abruptly - but how? Elphinstone Urquart was a master of small talk. _Big_talk had always been rather less of a speciality of hers. One had to take a chance, though. So far, whenever she'd brought herself to do it, it had usually been worth it. In one way or another.

But Minerva was quicker. Just as Elphinstone had made up her mind, right words or no right words, Minerva set down her glass. In as simple a gesture as they came, she cupped Elphinstone's neck with her hand, leaned forward, and softly placed her lips on Elphinstone's. She left absolutely no doubt that she meant it.

Elphinstone started. The sensation was too beautiful, the gesture too tender to be interrupted. But it couldn't be, not like this, not with Minerva not knowing whom she was kissing, not with Elphinstone not knowing _as whom_she was being kissed. Slowly, she laid a hand on Minerva's shoulder, lingered for a while, just a little while, and gently pulled back.

"Minerva," she began.

Minerva smiled a faint smile, nodded, and lowered her eyes. "I'm sorry," she said. She slowly withdrew and sat down on the sofa, folding her hands in her lap. "No, let me rephrase that. I'm not sorry. But I do apologise if I made you feel uncomfortable."

"You didn't," Elphinstone said. "There is just something you ought to know."

"Yes." Minerva said. "I thought there might be."

"You did?"

"Is it because I'm a woman?"

Elphinstone laughed. "Oh, Minerva." She set down her glass on the coffee table and stepped up to the window. Her glance fixed at the chimneys of Highgate, she said, "The problem isn't that _you_are a woman."

She turned around.

~ / ~

Minerva's mind went blank. The sentence echoed in her head, spiralling around like a horde of pixies that didn't want to be caught, until, exhausted at last, they slowly began to settle.

_"The problem is that _I_ am."_

Minerva let the blanket slide down from her shoulders and got up from her armchair. She approached Elphinstone, who stood there motionless by the window, and laid a hand on his - on _her_arm.

"You are…?"

Elphinstone raised a hand to her collar. "Yes." She tugged at the white tie until it opened and undid a few buttons, not many, just to reveal the light swell above a stretch of tight, off-white fabric that probably explained why even in the summer, and even on hot nights on overtime in a deserted Ministry, Elphinstone Urquart had never been seen with so much as a shirt button open.

"I'm … I don't know what to …"

"You don't have to say anything, Minerva," Elphinstone said. "I wish I had been honest with you earlier. I'm sorry I wasn't. I suppose I've lost the habit a bit." She buttoned up her collar again and fastened the tie around it. "I better ..."

"No!" Minerva cut in. "No, please stay. Please. Sit down with me."

She pointed her wand at the armchair, which promptly expanded into a two-seater, and sat down in one corner. She opened the silver buckles of her pumps, pulled her feet up on the sofa, and slung her arms around her legs, motioning for Elphinstone to join her in the other corner.

And then, softly, Minerva began to chuckle.

"What's funny?" Elphinstone asked.

"Oh, just the irony," Minerva said. "You see, I took you to this performance because I was trying to get ready for a confession of my own. I've never talked about it to anyone, but I thought that perhaps you would … given that I thought you were …"

"That a homosexual man would understand about lady doctors liking tall Frenchwomen in jodhpurs?" Elphinstone's face cracked into a faint smile.

"Did you guess?"

"Half-half. I wouldn't have bet a bottle of McDwaggin's on it." Elphinstone stripped off her shoes and pulled her feet up on the sofa, too. "Though I might have staked a bottle of that Ogden's swill on the nature of your friendship with Miss Delacour."

Minerva laughed. "That is much less than I would have staked on you being of the Oscar Wilde sort. I clearly should never play." She raised her tumbler at Elphinstone, then turned serious again. "You see, I've spent the better part of the opera wondering about myself. I enjoyed being with Dougal, but I missed something in his companionship. And when I was with Augustine, it felt right; I felt free, and it seemed a perfectly wonderful life to me. But after a while, I started missing something in her, too. It seemed that just as Dougal was too much _unlike_ me, she was too much_ like_me."

"Well then," Elphinstone said with a wry smile. "I may be just the thing you're looking for."

Minerva laughed, and Elphinstone got up from the sofa to retrieve her glass from the coffee table.

"Jokes aside," Elphinstone said as she sat back down and laid her arm on the backrest. "Tell me about Dougal and Augustine."

Smiling, Minerva nodded. "On one condition. You tell me about the years between Miss Marchbanks's visit to Cape Coast and your landing at Southampton." She fetched the bottle of McDwaggin's from the counter and poured both of them a generous refill.

"Deal," Elphinstone said, and they toasted the beginning of what would be a long night of quietly-spoken words, many pauses, and soft laughs here or there. Because that was the thing about stories like theirs when they were told to an understanding soul - the telling somehow made you see the humour in them when the experiencing had made you see little but sadness.

~/~

**Highgate, Some Time Before Noon**

When Minerva woke up the next morning, the sun was already mercilessly high in the sky, casting its unmitigated luminosity through the un-curtained bedroom window, in the cruel but knowing way of only the Saturday morning sun after a Friday with a dram or three too many. Minerva had opened her eyes too quickly, and her hands darted to her eyes to shield them against the assault. What day was this, what continent, and why was the bed so narrow?

Then she felt the warmth of a body and heard the faint, regular breaths next to her, and her face broke into a tired smile.

It couldn't have been more than a few hours ago that Minerva and Elphinstone had still sat on the makeshift sofa, feet propped up, arms across the backrest, hands twirling plain glass tumblers, and shared stories of youthful doubts and desires, of passions and stubbornness, uncertainties, certainties, and always an undercurrent of guilt. The sky had long begun to turn a pale blue when Elphinstone looked at the clock and said after a moment's hesitation, "I think I should go soon."

"Where to?" asked Minerva.

"Why, home, of course."

Minerva had put down her glass and raised an eyebrow. "You pardon my saying this, Madam Urquart, Sir, but I think you're in no fit state to Apparate any more." She'd taken a sideways glance at the bottle of McDwaggin's. They'd made substantial inroads on the contents.

"I could take a taxi."

Minerva had begun shaking her head, but the sensation soon made her think better of it. "Rodelinda is taken care of, isn't she?"

"Yes. She's with Griselda."

"Then that is settled." She got up, slowly, on account of the floor feeling rather less stable than usual. "I have a pair of pyjamas you can borrow," she said and opened the door that led to the tiny bedroom.

"Are you sure?"

"You've already spent most of the night here; you might as well stay for the rest and recover your faculties."

"Perhaps you're right. The sofa …"

"Fiddlesticks. The sofa's much too small for you, and I'm not going to do magic under influence with a DLM … with a DMLE official present." She'd tossed Elphinstone a pair of dark blue pyjamas.

"You know where the washroom is. You can go first if you like," she had called through the open bedroom door. Then she had begun to undress.

Minerva slowly felt her eyes adjusting to the sunlight. She tentatively removed her hand from her brow and turned on her side, mindful not to wake Elphinstone, who lay with her back against the wall so as not to take up too much space, but somehow she'd successfully appropriated the pillow. The sight made her smile. Elphinstone had withdrawn all the way to the wall when Minerva had joined her in that bed, but the bed being as narrow as it was, they quickly found that no level of care could prevent their hips and their shoulders from touching, or their bodies from bumping into each other when they moved. And it seemed that, after all, Elphinstone had minded that no more than Minerva. Little by little, she'd begun to relax when Minerva didn't pull back at the touch of a leg, and little by little, they'd crept closer towards each other, until Minerva's head came to rest against Elphinstone's chest, and Elphinstone's arm had wrapped itself around Minerva's shoulder, and they felt each other's breaths.

They had kissed, lightly at first, a sisterly, brotherly touch of the lips followed by a longer and tenderer one, hands lazily caressing backs and shoulders and a cheek.

Then, for all Minerva could tell, they had fallen asleep.

~/~

**Bloomsbury, That Evening**

The bell rang.

A look at the kitchen clock made Elphinstone smile. Seven o'clock to the dot. Well, what did you think, she thought as she put down the ladle, took off the striped chef's apron and cast a quick thermo-spell over the lamb curry that she had just removed from the heat. After a sceptical look into the hallway mirror, she straightened her shirt, ran a hand through her hair, sent Rodelinda to the hearthrug, and pressed the buzzer.

Minerva's footfalls already resounded in the staircase. Confident as ever, they were, purposeful, and always a tad louder than those of other women her age.

They had parted almost in silence that morning, the kind that happens when you've said everything there is to say and don't want to spoil the moment with meaningless chatter. A tender embrace had been their goodbye, and the agreement to have dinner at seven.

Elphinstone had spent the day thinking. Cooking was good for that; it gave one's hands a purpose and the mind free to wander.

She'd take it slowly. She wouldn't push Minerva, wouldn't make any advances that might pressure her into a decision before she was ready to take it. Being a woman living with a woman was one thing. Being a woman loving a woman who lived as a man was quite another; Elphinstone had no illusions about that. There would be no option of living together with the outward appearance of being good friends. Oh, they could certainly live together with the outward appearance of being man and woman - but would Minerva _want_ the role of a wife, with all the notions that Wizarding Britain had of wives and husbands? Elphinstone doubted it. She'd fled the prospect of wifehood once, Minerva, and for a good reason. Although, damn, the prospect of _husbandhood_certainly appealed to Elphinstone. No doubt about that.

The footsteps came closer, and Elphinstone opened the door a little wider.

"Good evening, Sir." Minerva stepped in, smiling, and Elphinstone helped her out of her coat. Amused and a little impressed, Elphinstone noticed that Minerva hadn't dressed up for the occasion. Or rather, she had, her way. She wore a simple pencil skirt that ended a hand's width below the knee, the kind she often wore to the office when she arrived by Muggle transport, and a chamois-coloured blouse. Buttoned up, a brooch fastening the collar. The only item that betrayed that she wasn't on a professional call was a pair of earrings - the teardrop-shaped pearls she had worn with her gown the evening before.

When she'd slipped out of her coat, she turned around to look at Elphinstone. Her glance was a little warm, a little questioning.

"Thank you for coming," Elphinstone said, gripping her hand and pressing it gently.

"I've been looking forward to it all day." Minerva leaned forward and placed a kiss on Elphinstone's cheek. She tugged at the fingertips of her gloves, pulled them off, and laid them on the chest in the hallway, next to a pair of cufflinks and a pocket watch.

"Dinner is ready."

Minerva nodded, but did not answer or move. It occurred to Elphinstone that her smile had transformed into something that looked decidedly mischievous.

And then, just as Elphinstone extended her arm to guide Minerva into the sitting room, where a table had been set for two and a dog told do behave herself, Elphinstone felt two arms slinging themselves around her waist, felt herself being turned around and pulled closer, and a pair of lips pressed against her own, forcefully and demanding, and very much unlike the night before.

The lips didn't seem inclined to let go this time, and this time Elphinstone didn't place a hand on Minerva's shoulder, or fight the impulse to linger for just another while, or, heaven forbid, pull back. Instead, she wrapped her arms around Minerva, pulled her tight, and kissed her back with the confidence of one who knew that she was wanted for all that she was - not for her appearance or her money or the staying power of a part-time appendix, but as Elphie, officially Elphinstone, formerly Margaret, good cook and impostor, troubled child and nemesis of governesses, professional and liar, and all in all actually a genuinely nice person with a very tender heart.

~ / ~

Minerva ran her hands through Elphinstone's hair, her tongue lightly tracing Elphinstone's lips, patiently, until finally they took the cue and opened for her. There was the sweet scent of smooth, warm cheeks, then the faint taste of an earlier pipe, the sensation of a tongue meeting hers, and she took it all in, then broke the kiss with a soft moan. She tilted her head just slightly, allowing Elphinstone's lips to trace a path along her cheekbone, down the jaw, and on to the curve of the neck, until they came to rest in the nook just where the blouse revealed the collarbone, right in the softest and most sensitive spot.

Suddenly, Minerva felt the coats on the wardrobe against her back, and the unexpected boldness of the move made her smile. She felt hands running up and down her back, her flanks, down her hips, and she mirrored their movements, encouraging them to go on, further down, past the soft swell of her behind, and finally on to her skirt-sheathed thighs. The sensation made her shiver - the tenderness of the hands, the feeling of some buckle or hook pressing sharply into her back, lips on her neck, and a tweed-clad leg brushing the inside of her thighs as her skirt gradually slipped up, inch by inch, up to the garter and even a little beyond. She ran her hand under Elphinstone's waistcoat, pushing it up, pulling a bit of shirt out of the trousers, just enough to touch the warm skin of Elphinstone's back and feel the sharp intake of air as she did. Merlin, she wanted more, wanted it now, and the sensation of her sex announcing its presence didn't do anything for her patience. Yet she fought the impulse to part her legs just yet, to invite the touch of a thigh or a hand, lest the excitement of this first exploration, this first shared arousal be over before it had even started for good.

She didn't know how long they'd stood there in the hallway, in an entanglement of limbs, hands and legs and lips caressing each other, growing bolder and more demanding with every moan and every whisper. All she knew was that at one point, she suddenly felt herself growing lighter, as if gravity had just decided to go out for tea. She recognised the effect of a levisupporting spell. Figures, Minerva thought; Elphinstone would be able to do those wandlessly, what with lacking the muscles that one would normally expect in a healthy man her age. And Minerva had to hand it to Elphinstone - that was some fine spellwork, and a decidedly legitimate use of it. She felt herself being lifted off the ground, an arm around her back, one under her knees, as if she were a featherweight of a bride to be carried home.

And honestly? She was loving it.

"I'm so glad you got the message," she murmured as Elphinstone carried her into the bedroom.

"Received, understood, acknowledged," Elphinstone replied softly.

"Excellent. I'll suggest you for a promotion on account of keen perception and unfailing initiative."

"Most obliged, Dr McGonagall," Elphinstone said, gently laying her down on the mattress, and kissing her hands. "Your obedient servant."

"I expect nothing less." She slung her hands around Elphinstone's neck, pulled her down, rolled them around, and began to tackle Elphinstone's collar buttons.

She felt a hand on her bun, and the sensation of pins being pulled out, one by one. Strands of hair began tumbling down behind her ear, by her temples, down her shoulders, until all that remained was a loose, black braid, barely held up by a ribbon and perhaps a remaining handful of pins. She unfastened her brooch, sent her glasses to the nightstand, and opened a few buttons of her blouse to reveal just a bit of the lace underneath. Then she returned to Elphinstone's shirt.

"Yes," Elphinstone whispered as Minerva had put a tentative finger on the hooks of the off-white fabric that stretched across Elphinstone's breasts, asking, "May I?" And so Minerva opened the hooks one by one, tenderly, not taking an eye off Elphinstone's face to see if the move was indeed welcome. It was, and Minerva had to smile at the sight that the fabric revealed. Why, if Director Urquart didn't have a pair of breasts that were a fair bit more sizeable than Minerva's own …

Their tips grew hard as she circled them with her tongue, and she felt her own respond in kind. There was an "I want you", and it may have been Elphinstone who spoke it, or it may have been Minerva, or both. Encouraged, emboldened, she moved back up to the lips, kissing them harder than before, and ran her hands down the slender flanks to the waistband. She felt her skirt sliding higher, and two hands guiding her until she straddled the narrow hips.

At last, Minerva let her hand wander on.

"Do you wear a …" she began.

Elphinstone gave a faint smile and shook her head. "No. No, not right now." She tucked a stray strand of hair back behind Minerva's ear and kissed her. "Would you like me to?"

Minerva smiled. "This isn't all about me, you sweet one," she murmured softly. "Do _you_ want to?"

After a heartbeat or two, Elphinstone said, "If it were welcome …"

"… it will be …"

"… then yes, I would like that."

~ / ~

There was a folding screen by the cupboard, and that was where Elphinstone disappeared. It never took her more than a few flicks of the wrist to don what she called her 'full male attire'. One to Summon it, two or three to fasten its buckles around her hips and thighs, and a last one to render the straps invisible. Madam P's Marital Aids offered a variety with magical strapless fastening, but Elphinstone didn't like it. It seemed too easy to stick it on just like that, and too much like fooling herself. With the tightness of the straps cutting into her flesh as she moved, the feeling was just real enough to give her the satisfaction and comfort of being able to live her other sex when she wanted to, and just unreal enough to remind her that the appendage wasn't permanent, that she had the freedom to wear it or not, that she was as much of a woman when she wore it it as she was of a man when she didn't.

When she returned to the bed, trousers back on, Minerva was sitting upright against the backrest of the bed, ready to welcome her back with a tender embrace.

~ / ~

With delight, Minerva found that Elphinstone was no more in a hurry than she was. Neither of them had a mind to let quickening heartbeats and deepening breaths keep them from taking their time as they explored the body of the other, felt it change, stiffen, soften, and arch with rising desire and arousal. Minerva let her hands wander down to Elphinstone's hips, on to the buttocks that she'd admired already as a young secretary-in-training, and a soft moan escaped her lips when she felt the swell of the recent addition brush lightly against her thigh. It grew harder, just a little harder, as she tensed and arched her back, and Minerva smiled when she saw the mischievous glint in Elphinstone's face as their eyes caught each other. And at last, when the urge, the desire, the sensation of her sex, long since slick and swollen against her knickers, made Minerva fear that she'd come right then and there if Elphinstone didn't touch her, didn't touch her _soon_, she slid a hand under the waistband of the trousers.

"I want you," she said.

She undid the top button, and her hand moved down, beneath the briefs, on to the buttocks, brushing past the straps that sent a shiver down her spine - there was _something_to having the tangible, ever-present proof that this man was a woman. Then she let her hand trail back to the front and, at last, wrap itself tightly around the phallus that had grown fully hard by now, and free it from the confines of the fabric around it.

"Let's see how much you can give me," she whispered as she began moving her hand up and down its shaft, pushing it gently against Elphinstone's loins with every strike, and, "Oh my," she gasped as Elphinstone, a dimple on her cheek, let the cock respond to the challenge.

With a swift jerk, she turned Elphinstone on her back, coming to rest on her knees by Elphinstone's side. The hairpins had finally disappeared for good, and the braid was unravelling as she trailed kisses down Elphinstone's full chest, down the stomach that was beginning to turn a little soft with age, and past the waistband.

As the lips didn't stop there, it was Elphinstone's turn to gasp, and she gripped the long, black hair, and gently pulled Minerva's face up to her own.

"Take me in," she whispered at last.

~ / ~

Much later, they lay spent and sated, half-covered by the sheets, cheeks flushed from excitement and arousal that still hadn't quite subsided. They'd been gentle with each other at first, careful not to rush the pleasure. But then, gradually, the gentleness had given way to the desire, the urge to feel the other, to take from her, give to her, to claim her and be claimed by her. And as the breaths grew faster, so did their strokes and thrusts, now with Elphinstone on top, now with Minerva, and the grips of their hands, on flesh, in hair, around fabric grew harder and more demanding, their rhythm more forceful, until Elphinstone felt Minerva's sex closing in around her, retaining her inside herself, and Elphinstone needed no magic and no imagination to feel Minerva's pleasure, feel the surge of wetness against her loins and the tightness around the phallus, just as if it were holding on to her own flesh and blood, and a wave of pleasure gripped her, pleasure not just of having given, but of having been taken, wanted, of having felt herself, felt at home in the woman she'd never dared dream she'd ever hold in her arms.

And yet, here they were, heads resting against each other, hands and legs entwined, fully undressed at last because one was, after all, more comfortable like that. Trousers and skirt, blouse and shirt, bra and breast strap all lay in a heap on the floor, abandoned for the warmth of the skin of the other and the cool of the crisp cotton sheets. And if one had thought that the picture couldn't get any more perfect, one hadn't counted on Rodelinda, who had sneaked into the bedroom and decided that there was indeed one thing that could yet substantially improve this picture of shared happiness and comfort. That, of course, was a fine specimen of an Airedale puppy, decoratively curled up on a pair of tweeds, a chamois blouse, and a white lace brassiere, cheek resting on an emerald-and-black thing of pigskin with strings in it.

Elphinstone placed a kiss on Minerva's hair.

"So," she said. "Shall I warm up the curry?"

~/~

Thus ends the first part of the story of Minerva McGonagall and Elphinstone Urquart. Oh, it is most certainly not the end of the story itself. But how exactly they managed to make a life of shared non-domesticity work over more than a quarter century, …

… how they negotiated proximity and freedom, …

… how Minerva guarded her privacy against the inquisitive twinkle of Albus Dumbledore's eyes, …

… what the two proposals of 1957 and 1979 had been all about, …

… and whether the rumours are true that after the war there had indeed been a small, private ceremony of vows in the garden of a Hogsmeade cottage for two, …

… well, that is a completely different story and shall be told another day.

~/~FINIS~/~

_**Author's Note**__: The title and aria are taken from G.F. Handel's opera _Serse_(Xerxes), first performed in London in 1738._

_The piece opens with a view of Xerxes (castrato) as he sits under a plane tree, contemplating the beauty of its shadow. He is about to leave his fiancée Amastre (contralto) for the beautiful Romilda (soprano). Alas, he is the only one who thinks this a good idea, for Romilda actually loves Xerxes' brother, Arsamene (mezzo-soprano). Understandably, Amastre is miffed, too, suddenly finding herself without a royal fiancé whom she actually happened to love quite a bit. In good baroque opera fashion, she therefore proceeds to dress up as a man, picks a fight with Xerxes, "rescues" the lover, and takes her back to Arsamene. Impressed by this display of balls, Xerxes realises that he really never stopped loving spunky Amastre in the first place, and happiness wins._  
><em>In the 1950s, castrato roles were generally either transposed down for tenors or sung by contraltos. Aunt Pat and Minerva distinctly preferred the latter.<em>


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